It was too dark to see anything, so Zana felt for the lock with her fingers. Behind her, Galen shifted nervously.

"What do we tell the night guard if he turns the corner right now?" he whispered.

They had snuck into the building and down into the basement without a sign of the old ape being around anywhere. Zana suspected that he spent most of his shift snoring in his office, which made his appearances quite unpredictable. If they had come across him on the ground floor, she'd have easily bluffed her way past him, claiming to have forgotten some thing or the other in her office.

Now, down here in front of the door to the laboratory, Galen with an armful of blankets from the kennels at her heels, it would be a wee bit more difficult to come up with a credible story.

She just had to hope he wouldn't turn the corner just now.

The key finally found its hole and she quickly unlocked the door to let them in. The air inside smelled of stale urine.

"Are you sure you didn't give them too much of your anaesthetic?" she heard Galen's voice in the darkness. "If they have emptied their bladders..."

Galen had studied medicine for a while, Zana remembered as she felt around for the lantern hanging somewhere near the door. The lab didn't have windows, so they could make light without fear of detection. She switched the gas on and held the flamestick against the mantle.

"The staff may have squeezed them out in preparation for the obduction. It's not nice to cut into a full bladder." Or perhaps one of them had lost control of their bladder when she gave them the injection. She didn't remember... she hadn't really paid attention then.

Or Galen was right and they had died.

But then they'd have relaxed their bowels, too, and she didn't smell that. They weren't dead. They couldn't be!

In the pale, bright light of the lantern, the bodies were just indistinct bulks on the tables, hidden under leather covers - to keep the flies away; but they would also have captured at least some of the humans' body heat. Perhaps they had been lucky, and not slipped into a coma from hypothermia...

Her breath suddenly came easy, for the first time since she had left Zaius' office this morning, when she found a pulse on Alan, then on Peet. She leaned against the table for a moment, trembling with relief. They were alive. They were both alive, though still unconscious and too cool, much too cool. She wiped away the spittle that had collected under Peet's cheek.

"Help me wrap the blankets around them."

Their Chimp strength came in handy now. Galen helped her to open the straps and carry the men to the wall where they carefully laid them on their sides.

"Have you assisted in a surgery during your studies?" she asked.

Galen shook his head. "I'm afraid I never got beyond the theoretical part."

"Their circulation is down from the anaesthetic, and the cold. Rub their limbs and backs as strongly as you can. I'll be back in a minute."

She returned as promised, carrying some hot bricks in a blanket.

"The animal attendants have a fire burning in the stove at all times, for hot water," Zana explained while she wrapped the bricks into some leftover blankets. "I just needed to put fresh wood on the embers. This will speed up their recovery." She put the stones under the men's feet and along their backs; then she stood up again. "I'll be right back."

"I'm beginning to see what kind of help you needed me for," Galen gasped, who alternated between Alan and Peet, rubbing their arms and legs.

When she came back this time, she carried a pot and two mugs. "Hot broth from their kitchen," she answered Galen's unspoken question. "It's a good thing they don't lock it, because I don't have the keys to the zookeepers' rooms." She joined Galen on the floor and began to rub Peet's limbs.

It seemed to take forever; Zana had to go back and reheat the broth, twice, and had already begun to worry that the humans had slipped into a coma from which they wouldn't wake up again. In that case, it would be the decent thing to really go through with the euthanasia...

... and then Peet opened his eyes.

It was more that his eyelids fluttered for a moment. But after another moment, they opened again and he stared through her, pupils huge and unfocused.

"Peet is back," she told Galen, relieved and excited.

"Alan here is coming around, too," he reported a short while later.

Peet was moving his arms, clumsy and uncoordinated, and it took her a moment to realize what he was trying to do. Zana helped him to sit up and lean against the wall. His eyes were still focusing and unfocusing, but he seemed to recognize her, because he snarled.

Zana swallowed and tried not to feel rejected. She wouldn't be too gracious, either, if the face of her executioner was hovering above her. She put the mug to his lips and made him drink a bit of broth, careful not to make him choke. Then she made him drink some more.

Finally, she wrapped his hands around the hot mug. "Drink this, it will help you get warm and wake up. That's right, just a sip... that's good. Take it slow, so that you don't throw up." She squeezed another hot stone between the wall and his back and went over to Alan, who was already sipping from his own mug. He was squinting up at her, his usual smile gone from his pale and bruised face, and she noticed that he was still trembling with cold.

She put another blanket over his shoulders and went to reheat the bricks.

An hour or so went by in silence; only Galen was shifting nervously as the night got longer and longer. Zana knew what he was thinking; by tomorrow, the humans had to be well beyond the city walls, and she had to have the paperwork ready. Still, it was no use hurrying them; the body needed its own time to recover.

"Why we still here?" Peet's rough voice finally broke the silence.

Because I couldn't do it. Because I'm weak. Because I'd rather risk your kind to come and find you, and destroy us, than kill you in cold blood. Because I'm neither a soldier, nor a politician. I'm unable to make the hard decisions... or obey those who can make them.

"I didn't want to be a murderer," she said softly.

Peet just nodded and took another sip from his broth.

"It's gone."

When she looked up, Alan's hand was at his throat. He looked stricken. "The necklace... it's gone. Again."

"It's probably back in Zaius' study," Galen said in his soft voice. "Urko took it, I think."

Peet made a brittle sound. It was a laugh, Zana realized belatedly.

"Back at the beginning. All that shit for nothing." He sounded bitter.

"Not quite back at the beginning," Galen objected gently. "You need to get out of the city now; Zana will pretend you've been cremated. The upside is that nobody will go looking for you, since you'll be officially dead."

"And go where?" Peet's voice was hoarse, whether from the anaesthetic or despair, she couldn't say.

"There's strays' territory in the West." At their questioning looks, Galen explained. "Strays are escaped humans, hiding in the wilderness. Our world isn't very densely populated; if you can reach the badlands, you will be safe. Well... relatively safe."

"Sounds good." - "We need the data disc first."

"Jesus Christ, Al!" Peet exploded. It was the first time Zana saw him openly oppose Alan, who she assumed outranked him in whatever hierarchy the humans had established among themselves. "Come off that pipe dream already! Look around you, they're still using gas lamps!"

Zana tried to decide if she should feel offended on behalf of the lamp, when he continued, "They're still in the, what, nineteenth century? Where do you think you'll find someone with a computer that can read out that stuff? And even if they could, they'd never be able to build another Icarus. That thing was state of the art, top level innovation stuff on our world!"

She glanced at Alan, whose jaw had set in a stubborn expression that she knew all too well from her own father. "I'm not going anywhere without it."

Peet let his head fall against the wall with a groan. "When will you finally forget about that thing?"

"When I see my family again." Alan was unmoved.

"Well..." Galen began hesitantly, "We'll need to go by the council anyway. They'll need papers," he explained to Zana when everyone turned to stare at him. "And I have the keys to Zaius' office. They'll have the city seal and everything..." He buried his face in his hands. "What am I doing?"

Peet's lips twitched. "Groveling before your girlfriend. Happens to the best of us."

"Fine, let's go." Alan put his mug down.

"Umm... clothes first?" Peet gestured at himself. "Unless you want to stroll down main street in the nude."

"I don't have the keys to the clothes' storage," Zana apologized. "And I hadn't thought to bring some. When I heard that Urko was down here, I just..." she sighed.

"My father has humans. We can get everything from there," Galen suggested. "Not just clothes - food, water bottles..." His sigh echoed Zana's. "Not that I had planned on going back there..." he murmured.

"So how do we get there?" Peet repeated. "Still in the nude?"

"We'll take the back alleys..."

"... so they have back alleys, Pete, I was right after all..."

"... and you'll have to use the blankets, Peet, like you did when we first met. It's only for a little while," Zana said encouragingly.

"Okay then." Peet tried to get up, but fell to his knees again, still dazed from the drug.

"Whoa, easy there, Pete." Alan was slowly getting to his feet with Galen's help. "Take it slow."

"We don't have all night, Al - if Zana here wants to fake our death certificates, we need to leg it, pronto." Peet grabbed the table and pulled himself up. His knees were wobbling.

"Walking in fresh air will get your circulation up in no time," Zana assured him while she slung a blanket around his waist. She wasn't at all prepared when he put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. She blinked at him; except for the one time during the hearing, he had never deliberately touched her before, and if he had, she wouldn't have expected it to be so gentle.

"Hey." His voice was still rough. "That was... damn kind of you. An' brave."

She breathed a trembling sigh. "No, Peet. I wish I was kind and brave, but I'm a terrible coward. I was just... too soft to go through with it. I like you too much."

"Yeah, well, I can live with that, too." He smiled down at her. "I still think you're one of the good ones."

She looked away and pulled the knot tight. "You're too kind."

"'k, so I'm kind, too. Let's just say then all assembled here are white hats."

"... I don't understand." This was one of his irritating contextual idioms again.

She had so missed them.

He winked at her. "Never mind."

Burke had a strong sense of dejà vu, sneaking through the bushes of the apes' city at night. Well, this time they had local guides, so perhaps they wouldn't run afoul of one of the ape patrols. There were quite a lot of them in the streets, he noticed. More than last time. Al nodded in agreement when he pointed it out, so it wasn't just his imagination.

Well, they couldn't be looking for them, right? They were dead, their bodies cooling out in the basement of that institute, ready to be gutted in the morning. His muscles tensed at that image.

But it certainly made getting to Galen's house way more difficult than it otherwise would have been. More than once, they had to retreat hastily into a dark archway or into the undergrowth when Zana, who went ahead, signaled another patrol coming their way by vigorously scratching her ear. The poor girl would be glowing in the dark by the time they finally reached their destination. It didn't stop Burke from scanning their surroundings - the patrols might not always come directly at them from the opposite direction.

That's how he spotted the one hiding in the undergrowth opposite Galen's house. He threw out his arm against Galen's chest to stop him from bumbling on towards the main gate, and pulled Zana back into the darkness with his other hand. Luckily, both had enough sense not to make a sound. Their eyes shimmered in the faint light of the lanterns burning at both sides of the entrance when they looked at him in askance. Burke pointed.

"Is he watching our gate?" Galen breathed.

"Looks like," Burke whispered back. To his surprise, Galen didn't wonder about the reason.

"How do we get inside now?"

"Does your house have a back entrance?" Alan whispered.

"Yes, but from where he stands, he can see both doors."

Burke left their war council and went back a stretch of of the way, before he crossed the road and crept towards the guard through the bushes. His makeshift clothes (a kind of hakama and a poncho made from the blankets) swished and snagged on the twigs, so he shrugged them off. Now completely naked, his movement was nearly soundless as he glided through the vegetation. He just wished he had his knife with him; on the other hand, perhaps it was better not to kill the ape. A dead ape in front of Galen's home would just spell trouble for the family.

Well, more trouble than they apparently were in anyway.

He still couldn't vouch for the ape's skull as he knocked him out with a rock, but then again, he wasn't that concerned about the guard's health. The rest of his team hurried over to him and Galen let them in through the back door. Zana gave him a strange look as she passed him; she had seen him naked before, and it hadn't bothered her any more than the sight of a horse without a tutu would have bothered him, so he assumed it was his display of violence against one of her own that had disturbed her.

He shrugged inwardly; she couldn't expect that he'd swoon the guard with his good looks and rakish smile, right?

The house was deserted except for the human slaves that peeked around the corner until Galen sent them back to their cots; he showed Zana the kitchen and vanished to find some clothes for them.

Zana brought some bread and cold meat and they all ate in silence. Burke hadn't realized how hungry he was; the broth had been good, but his stomach was already empty again. He felt Zana watching him and tried to slow down. He couldn't remember if she had ever been around at feeding time. Was she just fascinated at the speed with which he wolfed down his food, or was she still regarding him like an escaped predator?

Galen returned with a bundle of clothes and they spent the next few minutes sorting through them until they found pieces fitting in size. The cloth was coarsely woven, but rubbed smooth from long use; Burke settled for a blue shirt and light brown trousers. Virdon had snagged a leather vest to wear over a reddish shirt. "Very fashionable, Al," Burke grinned, "now you just need a hat."

Galen had also brought shoes, for which Burke was really thankful; the thought of running cross country on naked feet had been worrying him ever since their first jailbreak. Step into a thorn or cut your foot on a sharp rock, and you're done for. For a life on the run, your feet were your most important body parts.

"So," Burke said while stepping into his pants, "what did your old man do to get so much loving attention from Urko's henchmen?"

"He sired me," Galen muttered. The men exchanged a surprised look.

"Whatcha saying, Galen?" Burke tried to be casual, "Stepped on somebody's toes?"

In response, Galen pulled a leather-bound book from his bag and dropped it onto the table with a thump. For a moment, everyone stared at it; then Zana moved over and turned the cover. She inhaled sharply. "Oh, Galen..."

Burke frowned. "What's that? Galilei's Revolutions?" He noticed Virdon's look. "What? I went to school, too, you know?"

Zana sighed and closed the book. "It's a forbidden book, that much I can tell. Where did you get it from, Galen?"

"I found it in Zaius' private study, when I went to find Alan's necklace."

"But why did you take it with you?" Zana sounded at once incredulous and panicked.

Galen shrugged helplessly. "I started reading it in his study and I couldn't put it down. Everything they taught us at school is a lie, Zana!" He began to pace the room. "I'm used to my father lying to me, and the councillors lying to each other, all the time, but at least there everyone knows that they're being lied to. This," he waved at the book that lay innocently on the table, "this is much worse. It's a lie nobody knows of. Except for Zaius, it seems, and perhaps some inner circle in the council."

"But now they're chasing you, Galen, and when they catch you, they'll convict you for heresy, or treason, or some other made-up crime," Zana cried, "and they'll hang you for it! You'll never get an opportunity to tell anyone the truth, and the book will vanish into Zaius' study again. It wasn't worth it, just to satisfy your curiosity!"

"We draw a line, and when it gets crossed, we shrink back, and then we stop drawing lines at all," Galen said softly. It sounded as if he was quoting someone. "I knew about the consequences when I took it, but I couldn't just walk away from the truth. I just didn't think they'd find out so quickly." His fingers brushed over the dark leather.

"Well, we better get going," Burke broke the silence. "Since Galen here needs to fake some papers for himself, too. - What?" He turned up his palms at their stares. "You aren't just going to sit here and wait for the butcher, are you, Galen? You need to get the hell outta Dodge." He grinned. "At least we'll have a local to guide us and point out the sights and the fancy restaurants." He began to stuff bread, cheese and dried fruit into his backpack. "Do you have flint and steel somewhere?"

Galen watched him, frowning. "I'm not coming with you." He held up a hand when they started to protest. "Everyone thinks you're dead. If they find you in my company, and see that you're still alive, they'll know Zana disobeyed and lied to them! I'm not going to put her life in danger like that!"

Burke drew his upper lip between his teeth. The ape had a point; they'd probably hang the doc for treason - that would be a bad way to pay her back for saving their lives.

"But where will you go?" Virdon finally said. "You won't find asylum with other ape settlements, at least not in this area, so your only logical route of escape is into those badlands you mentioned earlier. And if I recall correctly, Urko raided them badly some time ago, so they'll probably kill you on the spot if you turn up there by yourself."

"He's right," Burke agreed. "It's your only viable option, and since we're headed the same way, you can as well come with us. Be realistic, you'd run smack into their next patrol - you'd already have, if I hadn't stopped you out there."

Galen held his head as if he was afraid it would fall off. "The Northern prefecture is pretty independent from the Council. I just told you, if they find us together..."

"Then you better listen to Peet when he discovers them well before you do," Zana said abruptly. "Do you think I'll sleep lightly knowing that I'll have to witness your execution one of these days? With Alan and Peet, I'll at least have the hope that you're safe somewhere, even... even if I'll never see you again." The truth of that fact seemed to suddenly dawn on her, because she turned away.

Virdon took Burke by the elbow. "Let's see what supplies we can find in the kitchen," he murmured. With a last glance towards the apes who were now hugging each other, Burke followed him.

"Do you really still want to go looking for that disc?" he asked his commander while they quickly opened and closed the cupboards. He discovered a roll of cord and put it in his bag.

"Sure." Virdon had found a tinderbox and weighed a package of tobacco in his hand. Burke raised a brow.

"Didn't know you were a smoker, Al."

Virdon put the package down; he kept the tinder, though. "I just thought we could use it for bargaining..."

"Excellent idea." Burke snatched the tobacco and put it into his backpack. "So, about that disc..."

"We all need papers, especially Galen, so we'll be there anyway. We can go looking for it while he forges those documents." Virdon sighed and rubbed his neck. "If... if we don't find it during that time," he said reluctantly, "we'll leave and I won't mention it again. I won't delay us because of it."

"Okay." It was a big sacrifice for him, Burke knew.

" Are you out of your mind?"

"That doesn't sound like a tearful goodbye to me," Burke remarked. Virdon just sighed and went back into the living room.

Galen turned to them for support. "Please talk some sense into her! She wants to go to the council house with us!"

At Virdon's silent prompt - apparently he was now the go-to guy for Zana - Burke took her by the shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. "Galen's right, Zana - it'll be safer for you to go home and deny you ever saw us... him. They'll have you for interrogation anyway, so the less you know, the less you can tell them." Even under... they wouldn't use force on her, would they? He shook off that thought. "You can't help him with the papers like he was able to help you with us in the basement, and you'd just put yourself in danger - for what?"

She gently laid her hands on his arms. "Don't you understand, Peet? Galen was the man I had hoped to spend my life with. Now I'll never see him again. Do you think I'll give up a single moment of this last night in my life with him?" Her eyes shone, but she didn't cry; she just pulled down his hands from her shoulders and straightened.

He turned to Galen. "Sorry, pal, I did what I could; it's her life, and if she wants to put it on the line for you, that's her right and her decision."

Galen gaped at him, incredulous that he'd give up so easily; damn, could it be that he knew her better than her boyfriend did? She wouldn't budge, and they'd only lose precious time trying to sway her. Burke strapped on his backpack.

"If we're caught, you're done for, too," he gave her a last warning. Zana just raised her chin.

"Then you should take care that we don't get caught again. Because this time, I won't be able to fake your deaths."

It was easier to get to the council house this time - probably because the patrols were searching for one or two apes, not a group of four people, and because the civilians didn't look twice at humans out after dark when they were with their masters.

They still kept mostly to the back alleys, because nobody wanted to risk stumbling into Urko himself, who didn't have enough imagination to distrust his eyes - he'd have recognized the humans at once, never mind that he had seen their corpses some mere hours ago.

"There's a night guard in the building, and he's not some bumbling old idiot like the one at Zana's," Burke whispered when Galen unlocked the front door. If they were detected again, they'd have to attack... something they weren't equipped to do. Burke fervently wished for a gun.

They tiptoed up the stairs, eyes and ears strained for the guard's steps, or a sliver of light from his shuttered lamp. Sneaky bastard - who thought of haunting a building in utter darkness like a ghost? Burke only dared to breathe freely again after Galen had locked them safely into Zaius' office. He shrugged off his own vest and stuffed the gap between door and floor with it, so that no light would fall into the corridor.

When he straightened, Galen had already hurried to the massive desk and was pulling out drawers in the darkness. Burke wondered how he was going to forge their papers without using a light - they couldn't light a lamp, as he saw now that the windows didn't have shutters.

His unspoken question was answered a moment later when Galen carried his supplies into the back of the room, where another door was hidden in the shadows. The room beyond it had no windows, and when Galen lit a lamp and closed that second door, Burke saw why.

So this was Zaius' innermost sanctuary. The secret room with forbidden books and forbidden human weaponry. Yeah, if he were Zaius, he wouldn't want to have the ape from the neighbouring house looking into this room while she was hanging out the laundry, either...

As he slowly walked along the shelves, an uneasy feeling began to spread in his gut. The stuff on the shelves looked old - as if it had been buried in the ground for decades... or even longer. It just wasn't what you expected to find on a historical site: not some pot shards or longswords, but a wheel rim. Or a fork. Or a...

"Al, look!" He held it up and laughed, incredulous. "A coffee machine?"

Where the hell had they found that stuff? And what had happened to that civilisation?

He turned to Galen, who was kneeling on the floor, scribbling. "All that stuff is human-made?"

"Yes," Galen murmured without lifting his gaze. "Zaius collects all human artifacts from archaeological sites. Nothing human-made ever reaches the museums or is described in the journals. As far as the public knows, it doesn't exist."

"Heaven forbid somebody could get the wrong ideas about humans," Burke murmured and put the thing back on the shelf. Coffee machines were a twentieth century invention; had this universe had a different evolution? He suppressed the faint stirring of an alternative explanation - it had to be a parallel universe, one with a completely screwed-up history.

He took a deep breath. "Have you found your stuff?" The sooner they got out of this room, the better. It made his neck itch.

"I found it!" Virdon reached into another shelf, relief in his voice and his face. He smiled at Burke. "And the disc, too - it's all here."

"Well, thank god!" Burke murmured. Finally that obsession could be laid to rest, at least until Al started obsessing over the computer that he'd need to read it out...

"We should see if we can find a map somewhere," Virdon said, pocketing the damn thing. He vanished between the shelves, and Burke shrugged and resumed wandering down the aisles.

At the far end of the room was the little library of doom that had cost Galen his comfortable upper class life. Burke cocked his head and read the titles. Well, stared at paw prints, mostly. With one notable exception: Atlas of Surgical Operations.

Burke blinked. For a long moment he just stood there, staring at the letters.

He could read the title. It was in latin script, plain English.

He rubbed his lips. The thing had its title written in friggin' English.

With a quick glance over his shoulder, he opened the glass door and took it out. It was heavy, a real door-stopper. Tearing his upper lip between his teeth, he opened it and scanned for the publication date.

November 2010.

November Twenty Ten.

The thing looked old, the paper fragile and yellow. He didn't want to think about the implications...

But he didn't have to - the meaning stood out in one white-hot flash of realization.

This wasn't some parallel universe. No other universe would have developed the same English language, the same publishing houses, and then buried them under centuries of loam and rock.

No, this was the same world. Their own world. Just... some time later. He felt his abs beginning to tremble, a strange sensation. So that's what 'shaken to the core' felt like?

Eh, no. Apes taking over from us? Not in a million years!

He had said that, hadn't he? But what if it had been a million years?

His palms were sweaty against the cover; he softly closed the book and put it back. How in the world was he going to tell Virdon? The man had looked so hopeful just now, with that stupid disc in his hand...

... he'd just ignore all that for now. He just couldn't deal with that shit on top of running for his life from crazy apes.

"Pete? C'mere, we're ready to go."

"Did you find a map?" He stopped at a shelf. Hello, darling... you look lonely, all by yourself...

"Yes. Now come on, what are you doing back there?"

Burke rounded the shelf and smiled innocently at them. "Just admiring the exhibits. We'll be the only visitors for a long time, I guess."

Galen handed him a letter. "This is your identification - I kept your name, it's easier to remember - and the name of your owner. That would be me." He shrugged apologetically at Burke's look. "I know you don't like it, Peet, but there really is no way for a human to be wandering all by itself, unless it's a stray, and for that you'd need a weapon and the badlands to hide in."

Burke slowly folded the paper and frowned. "Does that mean I have to call you 'master'?"

"I'm afraid so. But only around other apes. Oh, and... I changed my name to Yuma. It would probably be better if you also called me that in private. So that I get used to it, too." Galen's smile was a bit strained, but his voice was as soft and unconcerned as always.

"Yuma, eh? I think I'll stick with Galen. I like that name better." He put the paper into the leather pouch at his hip. His pants didn't have pockets. "How do we get out of the city? Aren't the gates closed for the night?"

"There are little doors in the uphill wall..." Zana began, but everyone shook their head, including Galen.

"Urko would know to have them watched - he probably thinks Galen has gotten wind of his arrest warrant by now and is trying to escape," Virdon explained.

"So we'll have to wait until morning, when the gates are opened. Since Galen here has brand new papers, a certain chimp named Yuma and his two servants will stroll through the main gate without anyone batting an eye." Burke smiled. "After all, they're looking for one lonely chimp, not two dead humans and an ape."

They took care to erase all traces of their presence, Galen hesitating over the desk for a moment, and slipped out of the council house as the sky began to incrementally gray out. They crawled into a thicket that seemed dense enough to hide them from searching eyes, and waited for the gates to open. Galen and Zana sat arm in arm, whispering to each other. Virdon was dangling the necklace before his face, his eyes thoughtful.

Burke tried to find a position for his head where the contents of his backpack didn't poke him in the neck through the leather. Wouldn't hurt to rest his eyes a little before the fun started.

Because he didn't believe for a second that they'd get out of here without a hitch.